The key takeaway for anyone still holding out hope that Versus will ship anytime soon is that Nomura says the game is still in a preliminary phase.

"Since we're still taking on so many new development challenges, the team is still made up of the core members," he said. "Right now, we're making preparations to go into full production."

First announced at Square Enix's E3 press conference in May 2006, Final Fantasy Versus XIII has remained in an intangible state ever since. No playable demo has ever been shown and no release date has ever been announced.

But throughout all that time, Nomura and Square Enix have released a slow if steady drip of information to keep fans intrigued. It continually talks up the game in periodic Famitsu interviews, drops screenshots every Tokyo Game Show and has recently released some snippets of gameplay sequences.